Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

New branding for Faber

24.09.13 | Joshua Farrington - The Bookseller

Faber has redesigned its word marque as part of a branding strategy designed to "future-proof" the publisher for the digital era. Launching with its new spring 2014 catalogue, the old "Faber and Faber" marque has been replaced with "Faber & Faber", using the ampersand, and a new Art Deco-inspired font designed by Faber's art director Donna Payne. The new marque will be used online and on the back of book jackets, as well as on Faber's forthcoming stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Payne has also selected a series of colours based on those used in historic Faber front covers to be employed across print and digital in future. However, the publisher will keep the "ff" colophon on the spine of its books, and retain the existing design of its poetry titles. Payne told The Bookseller: "Faber now has various sub-brands like Faber Academy and Faber Factory, and we needed a visual way of tying all these together. So we decided to look at the branding with a view to future-proofing it, and make something which works across print and digital." She added: "People have used the ampersand when writing the company name informally for a while now, and I think people within Faber have a fondness for it. Changing the 'and' to an ampersand brings the two Fabers closer together. The font is inspired by Art Deco fonts from the 1920s, when Faber was created." Regarding the colour selections, Payne said: "We are lucky at Faber to have such a fantastic archive, and it was great being able to look back at some of the old titles and see how the colours have faded and changed over the years. Selections include "Naturalist Pink" inspired by Seamus Heaney's Death of a Naturalist, "Bell Silver", inspired by Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and "Union Gold", inspired by Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead. Faber c.e.o. Stephen Page said: "Faber’s trademark 'ff' colophon, created by Pentagram, has sat at the heart of our brand for nearly 30 years, and will continue to do so. In announcing a thrilling list for spring 2014, we are also unveiling a new design for our word marque. Reviewing our brand design in the light of the new world of reading, with its emphasis on readers online and digital publishing, we realised that we needed to find new ways to express our visual identity." Faber's spring list includes new novels from Hanif Kureishi, Sebastian Barry and Andrew O'Hagan, plus a new volume of poetry from Simon Armitage.